Mrs. Bindle: Some Incidents from the Domestic Life of the Bindles, Jenkins [popular romance novels TXT] 📗

as "a wash an' brush-up." This resolved itself into an entire change of raiment, as well as the customary "rinse" at the kitchen sink. This in itself confirmed Mrs. Stitchley's story.

"Well, s'long," said Bindle, as he opened the kitchen door. "Keep the 'ome fires burnin'," and with that he was gone.

Bindle had learned from past experience that the more dramatic his exit the less likelihood there was of Mrs. Bindle scoring the final dialectical point.

This evening, however, she had other and weightier matters for thought—and action. No sooner had the kitchen door closed than, moving swiftly across to the[Pg 303] dresser, she pulled open a drawer, and drew out her dark brown mackintosh and bonnet. With swift, deft movements she drew on the one, and tied the strings of the other beneath her chin. Then, without waiting to look in the mirror over the mantelpiece, she passed into the passage and out of the hall door.

She was just in time to see Bindle disappear round the corner. Without a moment's hesitation she followed.

Unconscious that Mrs. Bindle, like Nemesis, was dogging his steps, Bindle continued his way until finally he turned into Arloes Road. On reaching the second lamp-post he gave vent to a peculiarly shrill whistle. As he opened the gate that led to a neat little house, the front door opened, and a young girl ran down the path and clasped his arm. It was obvious that she had been listening for the signal. A moment later they entered the house together.

For a few seconds Mrs. Bindle stood at the end of the road, staring at the door that had closed behind them. Her face was white and set, and a grey line of grimness marked the spot where her lips had disappeared. She had noted that the girl was pretty, with fair hair that clung about her head in wanton little tendrils and, furthermore, that it was bound with a broad band of light green ribbon.

"The villain!" she muttered between set teeth, as she turned and proceeded to retrace her steps. "I'll show him."

Arrived back at Fenton Street, she went straight upstairs and proceeded to make an elaborate toilet.[Pg 304] A little more than an hour later the front door once more closed behind her, and Mrs. Bindle proceeded upon her way, buttoning her painfully tight gloves, conscious that sartorially she was a triumph of completeness.

IV

"An' 'as 'er Nibs been a good gal all the week?" Bindle paused in the act of raising a glass of ale to his lips.

"I have, mums, haven't I?" Elsie Brunger broke in, without giving her mother a chance to reply.

Mrs. Brunger nodded. The question had caught her at a moment when her mouth was overfull of fried plaice and potatoes.

"That's the ticket," said Bindle approvingly. "No bein' out late an' gettin' 'ome with the milk, or"—he paused impressively—"I gets another gal, see?"

By this time Mrs. Brunger had reduced the plaice and potatoes to conversational proportions.

"She's been helping me a lot in the house, too," she said from above a white silk blouse that seemed determined to show how much there really was of Mrs. Brunger.

Elsie looked triumphantly across the supper-table at Bindle.

"That's a good gal," said Bindle approvingly.[Pg 305]

"You've done her a lot of good, Mr. Bindle," said Mrs. Brunger, "and me and George are grateful, ain't we, George?"

Mr. Brunger, a heavy-faced man with sad, lustreless eyes and a sallow skin, nodded. He was a man to whom speech came with difficulty, but on this occasion his utterance was constricted by a fish-bone lodged somewhere in the neighbourhood of the root of his tongue.

"Wonderful 'ow all the gals take to me," remarked Bindle. "Chase me round gooseberry bushes, they do; anythink to get me."

"You go on with you, do," laughed Mrs. Brunger. "How was I to know?"

"I said I was a dove. You 'eard me, didn't you, Fluffy?" he demanded, turning to Elsie.

"I won't be called Fluffy," she cried, in mock indignation. "You know I don't like it."

"The man who goes about doin' wot a woman says she likes ain't goin' to get much jam," remarked Bindle oracularly.

"Now, let's get cleared away, mother," remarked Mr. Brunger, speaking for the first time.

"Oh, dad! don't you love your dominoes?" cried Elsie, jumping up and giving him a hug. "All right, mums and I will soon sound the 'All clear.' Come along, uncle, you butle." This to Bindle.

Amidst much chatter and laughter the table was cleared, the red cloth spread in place of the white, and the domino-box reached down from the kitchen[Pg 306] mantelpiece. The serious business of the evening had begun.

Mr. Brunger had only one evening a week at home, and this he liked to divide between his family and his favourite game, giving the major part of his attention to the game.

At one time he had been in the habit of asking in some friend or acquaintance to join him; but, since the arrival of Bindle, it had become an understood thing that the same quartette should meet each Saturday evening.

Mrs. Brunger would make a pretence of crocheting. The product possessed one thing in common with the weaving of Penelope, in that it never seemed to make any appreciable progress towards completion.

Mr. Brunger devoted himself to the rigours of the game, and Elsie would flutter between the two players, bursting, but never daring, to give the advice that her superior knowledge made valuable.

Bindle kept the party amused, that is, except Mr. Brunger, who was too wrapped up in the bone parallelograms before him to be conscious of anything else.

Elsie would as soon have thought of missing her Sunday dinner as those Saturday evenings, and Mrs. Brunger soon found that a new and powerful weapon had been thrust into her hand.

"Very well, you go to bed at seven on Saturday," she would say, which was inevitably followed by an "Oh, mums!" of contrition and docility.

"Out! You're beaten, uncle," cried Elsie, clapping[Pg 307] her hands, and enjoying the look of mock mortification with which Bindle regarded the dominoes before him.

Mr. Brunger leaned back in his chair, an expression of mild triumph modifying his heavily-jowled countenance. It was remarkable how consistently Mr. Brunger was victor.

At that moment a loud and peremptory rat-tat-tat sounded down the passage.

"Now, I wonder who that is." Mrs. Brunger put down her crochet upon the table and rose.

"Don't you bring anyone in here, mother," ordered Mr. Brunger, fearful that his evening was to be spoiled, as he began to mix the dominoes. There was no music so dear to his soul as their click-clack, as they brushed shoulders with one another.

Mrs. Brunger left the room and, carefully closing the door behind her, passed along the short passage and opened the door.

"I've come for my husband!"

On the doorstep stood Mrs. Bindle, grim as Fate. Her face was white, her eyes hard, and her mouth little more than indicated by a line of shadow between her closely pressed lips. The words seemed to strike Mrs. Brunger dumb.

"Your—your husband?" she repeated at length.

"Yes, my 'usband." Mrs. Bindle's diction was losing its purity and precision under the stress of great emotion. "I know 'e's here. Don't you deny it. I saw 'im come. Oh, you wicked woman!"

Mrs. Brunger blinked in her bewilderment. She was taken by surprise at the suddenness of the assault;[Pg 308] but her temper was rising under this insulting and unprovoked attack.

"What's that you call me?" she demanded.

"Taking a woman's lawful wedded 'usband——" began Mrs. Bindle, when she was interrupted by Mrs. Brunger.

"Here, come in," she cried, mindful that inside the house only those on either side could hear, whereas on the doorstep their conversation would be the property of the whole street.

Mrs. Bindle followed Mrs. Brunger into the parlour. For a moment the two women were silent, whilst Mrs. Brunger found the matches, lighted the gas, and lowered the blind.

"Now, what's the matter with you? What's your trouble?" demanded Mrs. Brunger, with suppressed passion. "Out with it."

"I want my 'usband," repeated Mrs. Bindle, a little taken aback by the fierceness of the onslaught.

"An' what have I got to do with your husband, I should like to know?"

"He's here. You're encouraging him, leading him away from——" Mrs. Bindle paused.

"Leadin' him away from what?" demanded Mrs. Brunger.

"From me!"

"Leadin' him away, am I?—leadin' him away, I think you said?" Mrs. Brunger placed a hand on either hip and thrust her face forward, causing Mrs. Bindle involuntarily to start back.

"Oh! you needn't be afraid. I'm not goin' to hit[Pg 309] you. Leadin' him away was what you said." Mrs. Brunger paused dramatically, and leaned back slightly, as if to get a more comprehensive view of her antagonist. "Well, he must be a pretty damn short-sighted fool to want leadin' away from a thing like you. I'd run hell-hard if I was him."

The biting scorn of the words, the insultingly contemptuous tone in which they were uttered, for a moment seemed to daze Mrs. Bindle; but only for a breathing space.

Making a swift recovery, she turned upon her antagonist a stream of accusation and reproach.

She told how a fellow-worshipper at the Alton Road Chapel had witnessed the return of Bindle the night of the altercation in the front garden. She accused mother and daughter of unthinkable crimes, bringing Scriptural quotation to her aid.

She confused Fulham and Hammersmith with Sodom and Gomorrah. She called upon an all-seeing Providence to purge the district in general, and Arloes Road in particular, of its pestilential populace.

She traced the descent of Mrs. Brunger down generations of infamy and sin. She threatened her with punishment in this world and the next. She told of Bindle's neglect and wickedness, and cast him out into the tooth-gnashing darkness. She trampled him under foot, arranged that Providence should spurn him and his associates, and consign them all to eternal and fiery damnation.

Gradually she worked herself up into a frenzy of hysterical invective. Little points of foam formed at[Pg 310] the corners of her mouth. Her bonnet had slipped off backwards, and hung by its strings round her neck. Her right-hand glove of biscuit brown had split across the palm.

Mrs. Bindle had lost all control of herself.

"He's here! He's here! I saw him come! You Jezebel! You're hiding him; but I'll find him. I'll find him. You—you——"

With a wild, hysterical scream, she darted to the door, tore it open, dashed along the passage, and burst into the kitchen.

"So I've caught you with the Jez——" She stopped as if petrified.

Mr. Brunger had just played his last domino, and was sitting back in his chair in triumph. Elsie, one arm round her father's neck, was laughing derisively at Bindle, who sat gazing with comical concern at five dominoes standing on their sides facing him.

All three heads jerked round, and three pairs of widened eyes gazed at the dishevelled, white-faced figure, standing looking down at them with the light of madness in its eyes.

"Oo-er!" gasped Elsie, as her arms tightened round her father's neck, almost strangling him.

"Grrrrmp," choked Mr. Brunger, dropping his pipe on to his knees.

Bindle started up, overturning his chair in the movement. His eyes were blazing, his lips were set in a firm line, and his hands were clenched convulsively at his sides.[Pg 311]

"You—you get out of 'ere!" the words seemed to burst from him involuntarily, "or——"

For one bewildered moment, Mrs. Bindle stared at him, in her eyes a look in which surprise and fear seemed to strive for mastery. Her gaze wandered on to the frightened girl clutching her father round the neck, and then back to Bindle. She turned as suddenly as she had entered, cannoned off Mrs. Brunger, who stood behind her, and stumbled blindly along the passage out into the street.

Mrs. Brunger followed, and closed the front-door behind her. When she returned to the kitchen, Bindle had picked up his chair and resumed his seat. His hands were trembling slightly, and he was very white.

"She—she ain't been well lately," he muttered huskily. "I——"

"Now, mother, where's the beer? I'm feeling a bit thirsty;" and after this unusually lengthy speech, Mr. Brunger proceeded to shuffle the dominoes with an almost alarming vigour, whilst Elsie, wonder-eyed and a little pale, sat on the arm of her father's chair glancing covertly at Bindle.

That night, when he returned home, Bindle found laid out on the kitchen table, a bottle of beer, a glass, two pieces of bread and butter, a piece of cheese and a small dish of pickled onions.

"Well, I'm blowed!" he muttered, at the sight of this unusual attention. "Wonders'll never cease," and he proceeded to unscrew the stopper of the beer-bottle.

The incident of the Brungers was never subsequently[Pg 312] referred to between them; but Mrs. Bindle gave herself no rest until she had unmasked the cause of all the trouble.

Mrs. Stitchley was persuaded to see the reason why she should withdraw from the Alton Road Chapel Temperance Society, the reason being a half-quartern bottle of gin, from which she was caught imbibing at a magic-lantern entertainment,—and it was Mrs. Bindle who caught her.

THE END